User:Neelamvdo

In 1978, Mohan Tryambak Ranade born on September 9, 1944, started a small business of distribution of classical and Marathi long playing records in the North America. At that time Indian classical music LPs were not easily available in the North America but local American companies used to release LPS of veteran artists such as Pandit Ravi Shankar, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and Nikhi Banerjee,

To receive LPs from then famous company in India HMV (now known as Saregama today) it took him 9 months to convince HMV that it will be a viable business. Finally after 9 months of back and forth letter writing, HMV agreed to supply LPs to the business then known as Amosam Industries.

With clever marketing, business slowly took off. The company also organized live concerts of famous vocalist such as Bhimsen Joshi, Vasantrao deshpande and Malini Rajurkar.

The company's name soon spread in India. During the visit to India in 1982, famous actor Dilip Prabhavalkar and writer Suresh Khare approached Mohan to distribute a video cassette of a Marathi play that duo was planning to release. At the same time Alurkar Music House - a music distributor in Pune - has started his own production of cassettes of Marathi and classical music. Mohan approached Suresh Alurkar (owner of Alurkar Music House) and offered a proposal to get cassette masters and art work (covers) from him to manufacture cassettes in the USA to maintain quality. Suresh Alurkar agreed to the arrangement.

On return to the USA, Mohan changed the formation of the company from a sole proprietor to an incorporation and took the name Neelam Audio & Video.

In the last 42 years the company has produced over 200 titles of audio and video programs of many prominent artists from India. The company markets their products through their web site www.neelam.com

Many similar companies popped up in 80s and 90s but after invention of the music streaming most them has closed their shop except Neelam Audio & Video which now offers their catalog to 28 streaming platforms spread world wide. The company also produces pen drives from their vast collection of old recordings.